John Powers

I gasp in surprise at all fours. Miranda July's hilariously unpredictable novel about a middle-aged artist who leaves her family to drive to New York from Los Angeles, but only gets to the L.A. suburbs before she falls for a young rental car worker, checks into a cheap motel, and spends a fortune redecorating her room there.

All Fours is sometimes described as a book about perimenopause, the transitional stage before menopause. Yet this flattens it into sociology and self-help. July's Mind is far too unruly and interesting for that. Perverse, unrepentant, sometimes dirty, and often laugh-out-loud funny. I couldn't stop reading passages to my girlfriend.

All Fours is sometimes described as a book about perimenopause, the transitional stage before menopause. Yet this flattens it into sociology and self-help. July's Mind is far too unruly and interesting for that. Perverse, unrepentant, sometimes dirty, and often laugh-out-loud funny. I couldn't stop reading passages to my girlfriend.

All Fours is sometimes described as a book about perimenopause, the transitional stage before menopause. Yet this flattens it into sociology and self-help. July's Mind is far too unruly and interesting for that. Perverse, unrepentant, sometimes dirty, and often laugh-out-loud funny. I couldn't stop reading passages to my girlfriend.

It's a one-of-a-kind book about a woman cannonballing into her search for a new self and a new life. you never know where it's headed.

It's a one-of-a-kind book about a woman cannonballing into her search for a new self and a new life. you never know where it's headed.

It's a one-of-a-kind book about a woman cannonballing into her search for a new self and a new life. you never know where it's headed.

You know exactly where things are headed in Soundtrack to a Coup d'Etat, an inventive documentary about the 1961 assassination of Patrice Lumumba, the elected prime minister of the newly independent Congo, who was killed at the behest of the American and Belgian governments.

You know exactly where things are headed in Soundtrack to a Coup d'Etat, an inventive documentary about the 1961 assassination of Patrice Lumumba, the elected prime minister of the newly independent Congo, who was killed at the behest of the American and Belgian governments.

You know exactly where things are headed in Soundtrack to a Coup d'Etat, an inventive documentary about the 1961 assassination of Patrice Lumumba, the elected prime minister of the newly independent Congo, who was killed at the behest of the American and Belgian governments.

This is no grimly realistic sermon, but a jaunty montage film, blending fabulous archival footage, amazing interviews, CIA machinations, and oodles of black music from the likes of Louis Armstrong and Nina Simone. Along the way, Belgian filmmaker Johan Grimenprez quotes poet Octavio Paz's line, When history sleeps, it speaks in dreams. Grimenprez's movie unfolds like one of those dreams.

This is no grimly realistic sermon, but a jaunty montage film, blending fabulous archival footage, amazing interviews, CIA machinations, and oodles of black music from the likes of Louis Armstrong and Nina Simone. Along the way, Belgian filmmaker Johan Grimenprez quotes poet Octavio Paz's line, When history sleeps, it speaks in dreams. Grimenprez's movie unfolds like one of those dreams.

This is no grimly realistic sermon, but a jaunty montage film, blending fabulous archival footage, amazing interviews, CIA machinations, and oodles of black music from the likes of Louis Armstrong and Nina Simone. Along the way, Belgian filmmaker Johan Grimenprez quotes poet Octavio Paz's line, When history sleeps, it speaks in dreams. Grimenprez's movie unfolds like one of those dreams.

Life has turned giddily surreal in the Hulu series Interior Chinatown, based on the National Book Award-winning novel by Charles Yu. Its high point is the star-making performance by Ronnie Chiang, the Malaysian comedian you may know from The Daily Show. Chiang is uproarious as Fatty Choi, a low-ambition restaurant worker who's suddenly forced into waiting tables.

Life has turned giddily surreal in the Hulu series Interior Chinatown, based on the National Book Award-winning novel by Charles Yu. Its high point is the star-making performance by Ronnie Chiang, the Malaysian comedian you may know from The Daily Show. Chiang is uproarious as Fatty Choi, a low-ambition restaurant worker who's suddenly forced into waiting tables.

Life has turned giddily surreal in the Hulu series Interior Chinatown, based on the National Book Award-winning novel by Charles Yu. Its high point is the star-making performance by Ronnie Chiang, the Malaysian comedian you may know from The Daily Show. Chiang is uproarious as Fatty Choi, a low-ambition restaurant worker who's suddenly forced into waiting tables.

He treats the customers so rudely that, ironically, he becomes a sensation. Here, he approaches a white couple at a table. What?

He treats the customers so rudely that, ironically, he becomes a sensation. Here, he approaches a white couple at a table. What?

He treats the customers so rudely that, ironically, he becomes a sensation. Here, he approaches a white couple at a table. What?

The humor is slyer in my favorite mystery novel this year, The Lover of No Fixed Abode, by Carlo Frutero and Franco Lucentini, a hugely popular Italian literary team.